Parents’ attitudes and response to their child’s pornography consumption in Australia: cross-sectional survey

Abstract

Background Parents play an important role in monitoring children’s internet use, shaping their child’s understanding of sex, and are key stakeholders in the development of sexual health education policies. Therefore, we investigated parents’ awareness of and responses to children’s pornography exposure. Methods We invited parents with children aged from 8 to 20 years (n = 1029) to complete an observational cross-sectional online survey about pornography and young people. Results A total of 48% of parents thought that young people view pornography rarely or never, and 21% agreed that watching pornography could be part of a healthy relationship for young people. Some parents (27%) were aware that their child had ever viewed pornography. Most parents (56%) acted on this by talking to their child, while others (10%) took no action, or restricted access to devices (6%). Discussing pornography was found to be strongly associated (P < 0.001) with being aware of previous exposure to pornography for the child, and older child age (13 years or older). Parents were more likely to support education as the best practice to address pornography (65% agreed) than restricting access (39% agreed). Conclusions These findings provide new insights for policy responses and can guide the development of tools to support parents to respond to their children’s pornography exposure.